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FIRST LASTNAME / XXXXXXXXXXXXXX 36 | SEE A DIFFERENT GAME 10/13/2008 By Steve Greenberg He has a better arm than John Elway—just ask him—but the next great Broncos quarterback doesn’t want anything to do with the celebrity part of the job JAY CUTLER STAR Photos by Jay Drowns / SN SN1013p036.indd 36 10/4/08 4:27:03 PM

Jay Cutler is not a Star

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He has a better arm than John Elway- just ask him- but the next great Broncos quarterback doesn't want anything to do with the celebrity part of the job.

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Page 1: Jay Cutler is not a Star

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36 | SEE A DIFFERENT GAME 10/13/2008

By Steve Greenberg

He has a better arm than John Elway—just ask him—but the next great Broncos quarterback doesn’t want anything to do with the celebrity part of the job

JAY CUTLER

STAR★

Photos by Jay Drowns / SN

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Inspected 08/25/2008 JV

W hat’s Jay Cutler smirking at? A few steps inside the Highlands Ranch, Colo., home of his business manager, it is impossible

not to take note of the unwelcoming expression worn by the strapping lad seated at the kitchen island. He is wearing beige slacks, an untucked white dress shirt with three buttons undone at the top, that mussed hair you recognize immediately and … seriously, what is with that smirk?

The business manager and one of Cutler’s buddies, a fellow 25-year-old Vanderbilt alum, extend warm handshakes and offers of wine and food, but the man you came to meet keeps his head cocked to the left, his eyes down and his mouth in a state of James Dean-meets-

Chandler from Friends. Frankly, it’s really annoying.“Not your favorite thing to do, huh?” you say, an

olive branch.“It’s an off-day,” Cutler replies. “Why would I want to

spend it doing this?”“Then why are you spending an off-day doing this?”The answer: “Because they made me do it.”Don’t know who they are, let alone how they could

make the most gifted young passer in the NFL finally acquiesce to his first major print interview outside the football environment (team facility, stadium, etc.) since the Broncos drafted him in 2006. And don’t really care: First impressions are potent, and this one will be tough to change.

On game days, there’s nobody in the league who’s going

to throw it harder than I am.— Jay Cutler

Cutler doesn’t waste time worrying about the pass rush. His eyes are locked in downfield.

’‘

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40 | SEE A DIFFERENT GAME 10/13/2008

Jay Cutler

When Cutler says he has a stronger arm than Elway, he’s not talking

about Elway at age 48. He’s talking about vintage Elway (far right).

AIRING IT OUTThe first-time tight end Tony

Scheffler—another member of the Broncos’ franchise-altering ’06 draft class that also includes game-breaking wideout Brandon Marshall and studly pass rusher Elvis Dumervil—found himself on the business end of a Cutler pass, “I’d never seen a guy throw that hard,” Scheffler says. “I realized immediately, ‘Whoa. You’d better get your head around.’ ”

There are many things Cutler has as a quarterback that make him a uniquely well-rounded package. The patience with which he surveys the field. The fact that, at 6-3, 233, he is big and strong enough—he bench-pressed 225 pounds 23 times at the NFL Scouting Combine, one

fewer time than musclebound quarterback Brady Quinn—to withstand a heavy rush. But talk to 10 football people about Cutler and the first thing they mention is the strength of his right arm.

“Here it comes,” says Marshall, describing what it’s like to catch one of those passes. “I mean, you actually can hear it coming. There’s a whistle to it.”

Talk to 10 members of the Denver media about Cutler, of whom they are not particularly fond, and you’ll hear the word aloof almost as many times. “I don’t go out of my way to talk to the media,” he acknowledges.

“Whenever I talk to them, I answer their questions and I get out.” But reporters, too, are fans of Cutler’s game, enamored of his cannonball throws and the confidence with which he plays. No doubt Cutler loves having that arm. Perhaps, as he swirls and sniffs his glass of red several minutes into a rather strained interview, this subject will loosen him up?

So, Jay, who has a stronger arm, you or that one guy from the last century ... wasn’t Elway his name? “I do,” Cutler says, the same smirk now looking more like a half-smile. “I have a stronger arm than John, hands down.

I’ll bet on it against anybody’s in the league. Brett Favre has a cannon. But on game days, there’s nobody in the league who’s going to throw it harder than I am at all.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Tapped into Cutler’s straight-talking confidence, a willing participant is revealed.

On whether there is a team in the AFC with a better chance to reach the Super Bowl than Denver: “I don’t think so. With Tom (Brady) out, I think there are three, four, five teams that have a legitimate shot of getting there.”

On how surprised he’ll be if the Broncos don’t win the AFC West: “At this point, pretty surprised. Very surprised, actually.”

On his expectation that the Broncos will score every time they have the ball: “I think we can score 30-plus points a game. I don’t see why we couldn’t.”

On his willingness—like his favorite quarterback, Favre—to try to fit balls into tough spots: “Yeah, it gets me into trouble sometimes. But with the weapons we’ve got, why not? Get the ball in the air as quickly as possible and let them do what they do.”

On the last time he lost confidence on the football field: “Never.”

This is good, and you tell him so. He tilts his head back and laughs. It’s a friendly gesture.

From the living room, Marty Garafalo, the business manager, looks up with a smile and a knowing shrug. Later, the 54-year-old Jersey transplant, who did business with Elway throughout the Hall of Famer’s career, says: “I see a lot of similarities to when John was young. John was somewhat shy. John’s got a much more polished personality now, but back then it didn’t matter who you were, he was always polite with people. He just had a way of making people comfortable. It’s not the case with Jay. I think Jay wants to, and he’s gotten a lot better. But he’s not comfortable with his status yet.”

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When the game gets serious

Fishing for a conversation starter with one of those simple, mindless questions for which journalists are infamous—“So, you were born in Santa Claus, Ind.?”—you stumble upon evidence of just how shy and understated Cutler is. Santa Claus is, after all, Cutler’s birthplace as listed by the Broncos the past three years (and by Vanderbilt before that).

Only one problem with that: Cutler was born in Columbus, Ga. “Yeah, it does say Santa Claus for some reason,” Cutler says. But, Jay, why in the world didn’t you say something earlier? “It’s just not a big deal, you know?” Then he turns to the Broncos P.R. staffer in

Garafalo’s living room and shouts, “Absolutely, change it!” The next day, Cutler’s page on the Broncos’ website is updated.

But Cutler’s adolescence in Santa Claus is far from an open book. He keeps his parents—Jack, a former Indiana state trooper, and Sandy, a former substitute teacher, both retired and living in suburban Denver—and his two younger sisters, one of whom also made the move, off-limits to the media.

“My parents moved out here last year,” says Cutler, who owns a house in southeast suburban Parker and a loft in downtown Denver, and you tell him it must be nice to have them around. “It’s not always nice,” he says, with a look that makes you want to like him. “But they’re great.

But I’m like, ‘I’ve been at college four and a half years, I’ve been on my own, I’m 25 years old. Back up a little bit, you know?’ I don’t even know what they do out here. What retired people do, I guess.”

You realize then how young Cutler is. Twenty-five. And a millionaire, born of modest means, not to mention the walking, occasionally talking, fastball-firing hope and prayer of one of the most rabid fan bases in the NFL. Is it possible that we in the mainstream media—older, ruminating, cynical, fearful of an economic crisis, maybe even a smidge jealous—expect too much for these athletes to be more like us?

Now: Imagine being that 20-something under the weight

John Elway

You hear players talk about that “welcome to the NFL” moment, but when I think about Jay Cutler, I always flash back to what I call his “hello, NFL” moment.

It was December of his rookie year—at Arizona, 2006. Broncos’ first series. They call this bootleg left. He rolls out, gets outside, sets his feet and then throws across his body, a backside post route to

the right. A laser. Ball must’ve traveled 65 yards in the air before it dropped perfectly into the hands of Javon Walker. Touchdown.

It sure was a beautiful thing. And that’s when I knew this kid had it all—arm strength, athletic ability, field vision. And you’re really seeing it this year. Everybody in Denver is excited. The Broncos’ offense is churning up yards and shredding defenses.

And I have to tell you: Mike Shanahan’s offense is built for Cutler. When you look at all the guys who have had great success in the West Coast offense, they all could move around and make plays with their legs.

Joe Montana, Steve Young, Brett Favre—they all could get outside and make big plays. Cutler is either more athletic or has better arm strength than each of them. His

arm is pretty special, might even be as good as mine when I was his age. Certainly, it’s better than mine was at the end.

Cutler showed his mobility at Vanderbilt—running for his life sometimes against those SEC defenses—so you knew that would translate well to the NFL. And he proved he could make smart decisions under pressure.

Cutler exudes confidence. He handles everything and doesn’t seem to let many things bother him. As a young quarterback, that’s something that can speed up your progress.

But as he progresses, so do the expectations. Denver fans are rabid, and Cutler is a quiet guy who is a bit uncomfortable in the spotlight. As time goes on, he’ll come out of his shell and understand his position in the league and in the city of Denver.

Some people have asked how he compares to me. He’s closer to me physically than personalitywise. But even I struggled a bit with expectations and the Denver spotlight when I was his age. It can be overwhelming. Once he wins some big games, he’ll start to feel like he belongs. It didn’t happen for me until my

fourth year, when we went to Cleveland and won “The Drive” game. It was a big boost for me to win the AFC championship game, especially on the road.

Cutler just needs to keep growing. His teammates’ confidence in him and the coaches’ confidence in his abilities have grown by leaps and bounds this year. It’s obvious.

Hey, everybody follows a winner. And he’s going to win a lot of NFL games.

John Elway, a Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback, is a regular contributor to Sporting News.

Make no mistake—this guy has it all

Cutler gets a little help from his friend It’s not unreasonable to characterize

Brandon Marshall as a combination of Terrell Owens and Randy Moss. Marshall (6-4, 230) has the explosiveness and bulk of one and the fluid, long-limbed grace of the other.

With a rap sheet that led NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to suspend him for the Broncos’ opening game this season for violating the league’s code of conduct, Marshall also has the “potential” to be more controversial than Owens and Moss put together.

But as Marshall’s friendship with his quarterback, Jay Cutler, deepens, so does the hope his wayward days are behind him. It’s natural for players to be linked in this way: They came into the league together in the 2006 draft, and, since Cutler became the team’s starter in Week 13 of their rookie year, Marshall has the fourth-most catches (behind Cincinnati’s T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald and Indianapolis’ Reggie Wayne) among all NFL players.

Not bad—even for a guy who, when asked to name the top five receivers in the game, starts with “Me” and follows a dramatic pause with “me, me, me and me.”

“He’s just phenomenal,” Cutler says. “I think he’s the best receiver in the league.”

Marshall has been 1A to Cutler’s 1 since joining the Broncos as a fourth-

round pick from Central Florida, where Marshall actually split time between wide receiver and safety. Despite missing the opener, he is tied for the NFL lead in catches this season, with 31. An 18-catch game—tied for the second-most in league history—in a memorable Week 2 win over the Chargers stamped him as a rising superstar.

“I set some high goals for myself,” Marshall says. I’ve been doing it since I was in Pop Warner. Nothing has changed.”

Indeed, Marshall makes no less an impression than he did the first time he practiced with his new teammates in ’06—when, coach Mike Shanahan says, “Champ Bailey looked over at me after about one play and said, ‘How’d you get this guy in the fourth round?’ ” The only difference now is the size of the audience.

— Steve Greenberg

Marshall and Cutler are close on the field and off.

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Jay Cutler

As great as the Greatest Show on Turf?

Cornerback Dre Bly has played on a couple of teams whose offenses took the league by storm, first in St. Louis with the Super Bowl Rams of 1999 and now in Denver, where the Broncos are averaging 33.3 points a game. He compares the Greatest Show on Turf with the … hey, somebody get Jay Cutler and Company a nickname, pronto.

1999 RAMS 2008 BRONCOS

“After we got to like 4-0—I think we beat San Fran—then people really started taking us seriously.”

First impressions, team

“I think here in Denver, teams are still sleeping on us. They’re not taking us seriously yet.”

“Nobody knew who Kurt Warner was. In camp, in practice, you didn’t really get to see what he could do. We didn’t start believing in Kurt until after we’d won a few games.”

First impressions, quarterback

“This is my second year playing with Jay, but from the first day I got here, I knew Jay had the ability to be a Pro Bowl quarterback in this league. He’s going to be an MVP candidate this year.”

“Because of the individuals we had on that team, there were a lot of guys who wanted to be the guy.”

Team chemistry

“It starts with No. 6 at quarterback—the humblest guy I’ve ever been around at that position, and with the most confidence. I know that sounds crazy.”

“Kurt, during that time, he had more weapons. With that offense we had, with Mike Martz as coordinator, we felt like—not to take anything away from Kurt—but if Trent Green hadn’t gotten hurt, he could have led us to the promised land, too. We had Marshall (Faulk), a Hall of Fame running back, and Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt, Hall of Fame receivers.”

Overall firepower

“Brandon Marshall is a beast. Brandon Stokley, to me, is the best slot receiver in this league. And Eddie Royal, he reminds me so much of Az Hakim (who was with the Rams in 1999), it’s ridiculous. But Jay is the man on this team. His arm is so strong, I can’t even believe it. With No. 6 on this team, when you suit up on Sundays, you know it’s going to be a good day.”

— Steve Greenberg

of a city’s pressure, stoic like your old man the highway cop (“I’m just like him,” Cutler says. “Serious.”), shy and reserved by nature—and suddenly wasting away from the effects of Type 1 diabetes.

Cutler’s key stats last season: 3,497 yards passing, 20 touchdowns and 35 pounds lost. By December, teammates were asking him just how much he was partying. His weight dropped as low as 201. Six times a night, by his estimation, he woke up to urinate. As for pumping iron, the low point came when he could bench-press 225 pounds all of three times.

“At that point, I got a little worried,” he says, the smirk wiped away. “They told me, ‘It’s the grind of the season, 16 games, you’re not used to it, being a starter all year, the stress.’ But during the work week, I was eating, doing everything I was supposed to do. ... I lost 35, 36 pounds. I was always tired. My mouth was always dry. I didn’t really want to play football. I didn’t really want to go out there. I was tired before the game and exhausted after the game. I’d sleep all the time.”

Cutler blew off a couple of doctors appointments and went to Atlanta to

train with Marshall and Scheffler. “I felt a little better,” he says, “but I still wasn’t gaining a lot of weight, still was going to the bathroom a lot. But I didn’t go to a doctor. Why? I don’t know.

“When we got back in early April, we all had physicals, and that’s when I found out. (Cutler was diagnosed on April 16.) I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t tell anybody, really, what was going on. I had people telling me, ‘Hey, you look like hell.’ I was pale. I was 30 pounds lighter. I looked horrible. ... I was eating, taking all kinds of protein shakes, trying to gain weight. It was tough. But in the business we’re in, it’s all kind of, ‘You’ll get through it.’ ”

Barring a historic medical breakthrough, he will be insulin-dependent for the rest of his life. The dangers of his disease—blindness, kidney failure, limb amputation—are dire but largely abatable with proper blood-sugar monitoring. Generally speaking, Cutler’s robust form has been restored. “This does not have to affect the duration or quality of his career at all,” says Dr. Neal Barnard, a top expert in the field of diabetes research. “It should not affect his strength or his stamina.”

Had he gone much longer without being diagnosed, however, the consequences might have been grave. You want to reach out with a caring smack to the top of his head for being so careless with his health, but you don’t. Besides, it’s time to go.

By the end of last season, Cutler had lost about 35 pounds and was flat-out exhausted.

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An athlete, not a celebrityCutler’s white Hummer is parked in

Garafalo’s driveway, but a car service has come to transport the quarterback and his mini-entourage to Old Chicago, a restaurant in Littleton where Jay Cutler Live is telecast for the local CBS affiliate. The star of this weekly TV show used to be Broncos safety John Lynch, one of the most popular—and charismatic—players in franchise history. As for Cutler, well, he isn’t exactly a natural, nor does he relish the experience. “Just go and get it over with,” he says. He drains his glass of wine—which Garafalo later explains is a weekly preshow ritual to relax Cutler for the cameras and the hundred-plus fans who jam the place (“Premakeup,” the manager says. “I get his cheeks red.”)—and off he goes.

At Old Chicago, Cutler is decent on camera and polite to the fans, but you know he’d rather be somewhere else. Garafalo has a paper cup filled with red wine placed on the ledge of the booth closest to the studio desk where Cutler and the show’s host stand. During commercial breaks, the quarterback sips and checks in with his companions in the booth—the friend from Vandy, a friend from Denver and a cousin who moved from Indiana. It’s a Cutler kind of crew: laid-back, well-behaved (even though the four of them tore up the town last night after the Broncos beat the Saints), quiet. As soon as the half-hour show has concluded, they all slip out through the kitchen, leaving that week’s special

guest, running back Selvin Young, on his own to sign autographs.

Driving away from Old Chicago, you realize that, for Cutler, the interview and the TV show were one in the same. “Just go and get it over with.” And you are reminded of this the following day when Broncos coach Mike Shanahan recalls what the team saw on film of Cutler that compelled it to move up in the draft to get him. “First, the arm strength jumped out at us,” Shanahan says. “But the thing that impressed me most was he never even looked at the rush. He focused on the field at all times.”

Perhaps Cutler won’t ever enjoy the rush. The way he figures it, the nonfootball demands on his time eventually will drive him from the game. “Oh, absolutely,” he says, the smirk again in plain view (oh, it’s not such a big deal). He mentions Favre’s experience in Green Bay as an example. “Sixteen years of people dissecting your life, every single move you make, on and off the field? It’ll never get to that point for me.”

Yeah, well. He can’t stop you from almost, kind of liking him.

Cutler may be shy, but he does just fine on his weekly TV show with Vic Lombardi (middle) and Gary Miller.

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